


Victoria 1:3

by lirulin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: BAMF Women, Character of Faith, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Religion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rite of Tranquility, badassery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 16:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirulin/pseuds/lirulin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short one-shot in which Cassandra uses her Seeker abilities against red templars. Because sometimes you just need some Badass!Cassandra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victoria 1:3

It was snowing.

It was strange that the snow caught her attention so easily. She rarely appreciated the weather, inclimate or otherwise, and had never done so before in battle. Her back struck the wall with force. Whether it was the demon's power or simply the weight of her armor, the ancient stone cracked behind her. Her gaze was not easily shaken, it barely jarred as her head whipped back and caught the stone. For a moment, she feared she would lose her sight, as red and white spotted across her eyes, but it was merely blood and a flurry of falling snow. She hung against the wall, floated on the surface of pain and cold, and then sank to her knees, breathless and staggered.

To her right, Solas twisted and dropped to the ground, took it shoulder and hip at once. The taste of his spell, coppery and cold, clung to the air even as it was shattered by the blow that felled him. His staff clattered against the stone with a terrible slowness, dropped and stirred the snow that tumbled around them, bent and twisted it around its shape until it settled. Another blow threw the mage onto his back. His eyes closed and, within moments, flakes began to gather across his skin. A shout to her left cut into the haze of her pain, split her head and started it throbbing, but Cassandra twisted her neck to find it. Sera stumbled back, bow at the ready, but she was already battered. Her arrow loosed and she lost her footing. The behemoth's hammer came down upon her and her skull bounced off the icy floors of the keep.

Where was the Inquisitor?

Her knees creaked with agony, brittle and cold as the Emprise itself, but Cassandra forced herself onto one foot and then the other. Her hands were locked, unfeeling and frozen, around her sword's hilt and her shield's grip. Her limbs, her skull, every part of her radiated a haze of sensation. She'd broken two ribs at least, perhaps one bone in her leg, maybe two, and her skull felt tender in a dazed, frigid way. She was not weak, she was a Seeker, this was not beyond her. She swallowed back the nausea that climbed her throat, ignored the way the world tried to tilt around her, and lifted her weapons to the ready. She would be mastered by no emotion, by no simple sensation, and the world became razor sharp as she purged them from her mind.

She turned as she stepped from the wall, pivoted in a slow circle but the Inquisitor evaded her. Templars, choking on red lyrium, drowning in it, consumed by it, gathered around her. The rage demons, at least, had been felled, but the twisted shapes of men, of the Chantry's wayward guardians, lingered in force. She hefted her shield and backed up a pace, moving toward the center of the yard. 

She was empty, silent and shifting as the snowfall, and fear would find no foothold in her. Visions of maggots, heavy with lyrium and flesh, clung to the shapes of templars; Cassandra did not flinch. Her sword was sure, her blade blessed, she would not fall here. She had to find the Herald, the Inquisitor, it was her duty.

"Looking for this?"

The voice was smug. 

It had been smug before, laced with the long-suffering arrogance of all mankind, rich with the promise of desire and laced with the taste of clotting blood. Now, with her focus drawn to a cutting edge, he sounded small, ephemeral, _delicate_. The templars formed a ring around her and Cassandra turned until she faced the demon, no, the _choice-spirit_ who proudly wore the pallor of a dead man. 

His shape wavered in the air, turned over itself like a dream, both there and not in equal measure. Spiders legs, the face of fear, of rage, of sorrow, curled behind him in a mass of flickering shadow, no more substantial than spun glass. In his claws, held aloft like a marionette, the Inquisitor dangled by her neck. The creature's smile was venomous and perfect, like the set of the cold marble that made up the keep. Each piece fitted together smoothly and formed a whole, but like the keep, his smile was decrepit and ancient, crumbling around the edges.

Cassandra found neither promise nor threat in it, only a pitiable desperation.

"Oh, well this is new, not feeling chatty are we?" Imshael chattered, human and soft, and canted his head to peer at her through mortal eyes. His sneer returned with force, livid rather than impassive, and he drew his eyes over her like her very form offended his sensibilities. "Well you're no fun. Shame you're the last man up."

Thunder rolled across the cloudy sky, but the heavy, slow, falling flakes were undisturbed. Everything around her was red light, refractions through the crystal that fed on faithful blood, that poisoned the devout and curdled inside their veins. She wasn't angry, she wasn't afraid, she was peaceful. The cold was bracing, the silence oppressive, and the Seeker knew that she was alone. Though bodies surrounded her, they were shades, merely husks of the Maker's children subjected to some creature's perverse will. Those who lived were silent, had left her in solitude as they slept. 

The only one who stood with her now was the Maker. She was forever at his side.

She dropped her shield and rose from her crouch. She didn't need the shield, she was not fragile. She didn't need to bend to fight, Spirits could not harm her. She did not waver, her Faith held her steady.

It had been snowing the last time, too.

"Leave this place, demon," Cassandra demanded, her voice cold and solid as steel, and leveled her sword at him. His sneer persisted and he jerked at the form he wore, snapped the corpse into action, and his clawed hand brought the Inquisitor's unconscious face level with his own. His pout was as insubstantial as the rest of him, but Cassandra could nearly feel the venom as it curled across the Inquisitor's face.

"How many times do I have to correct them? What's that? _I know_ , it's ridiculous."

The demon's hand came to the Inquisitor's face and pressed her cheeks, moved her limp shape to play along with his pantomime. He endeavored to enrage her, to twist up some emotion, some ire to snare her soul. He would find no purchase for his fanged words or ripping claws. Cassandra let her sword fall from her hand and lowered her arm. It rang out as it struck the ground and Cassandra took a deep, silent breath. The demon's show, his rambling cut itself short as she ignored him.

" _She shall know the peace of the Maker's benediction._ " The words were soft, a silent prayer. It was familiar, a mantra spoken a thousand times over a thousand days. The passage was burned into her very soul. Her mouth moved even when the words were drowned out by the sound of falling snow. " _...For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees the light and goes toward the flame, she should see fire and go towards the Light._ "

"Oh this is too much, are you actually _praying_ at me?" Imshael asked, amused and offended all at once. He cast the Inquisitor aside like a toy and the corpse he was clad in settled his hands against his hips. " _You people_ are truly hopeless, you know that?"

" _The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she will know no fear of death…_ ”

The warmth that settled in her chest was brilliant and bright. Each breath tasted of the sun, of lightning and the fall of snow. Cassandra closed her eyes and bent her head in supplication. She had not required such Faith in long years, nor had such Faith been required of her, but it was now. It filled her and spread into her limbs, absorbing into every hollow space she'd emptied, into every crack battle had put in her armor. Her heartbeat was eclipsed by the rushing in her veins and, when she opened her eyes again, she felt little but pity for the faithful around her. 

“ _For the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield…_."

Cassandra felt her faith grab onto them, hook against the blight in their skin, and she pushed it into them. With all her conviction she drove the infection out of the husks around her. With light and fire, she burned the lyrium from their veins and, in a terrible symphony of screams and shattering glass, they were reduced to ash. They drifted down, in flakes of grey and mingled with the snow, granted peace with the world around them. Cassandra watched them fall, watched them scatter in the wind, and offered no defense when the demon charged her and wrapped his hands around her throat. 

Her back hit the wall again, but she was not shaken, she felt no pain. Imshael's lip curled, his face dancing behind this one, and his claws dug into her skin. His rage was palatable, it poured from him in a burst of ruddy flame and heat, but she was untouched. Cassandra stared back at him, expression perfectly flat, and his anger twisted in his gut.

"Fun trick, must be great at parties," Imshael spat at her. "Now you die."

Cassandra's faith was strained, her body was weary, but she had enough conviction in her that she would not be crushed by this creature. His hands tensed but, as they pressed against her flesh, they smoldered. His eyes widened as his hands caught flame and he stumbled away from her, panicked and confused as he stared at the blistered flesh and bone. He shook his hands out, willed the flesh to stretch, but the Fade was beyond him. 

“ _He shall be her foundation...._ ” 

The world was Real, solid, and Cassandra would not let it bow to some smug spirit who spread corruption through the Maker's work. Imshael screamed in frustration, his voice resounding with the shapes that moved, unseen, and seethed at the sky. He didn't see Cassandra retrieve her blade and didn't hear her approach. When he whipped around to turn his fury on her, his rage was undone by shock.

“ _...and her sword._ ”

She drove her blade through his chest in one smooth movement. 

The last of His light was more than enough to break the demon's barrier and his flesh smoldered around her blade. Imshael mouthed obscenities at her, pleas, promises, but Cassandra heard none of them. His claws caught on her armor, scrambled against it desperately, but she would have no mercy. His eyes, bright and exposed, lined with magic and fear, reflected her face as she tore her sword from his chest. It came free with a crack and ripped through all of him as it did. 

He screamed and it was an ungodly sound filled with deception and dread. The sound folded in on itself, collapsed around him, and died as his corpse toppled forward and dropped, motionless, onto the stones.

With each breath, she became herself. She felt the crisp cold and the bite of her wounds, but there was peace here. The snow stopped, while she stood above the corpse that Imshael wore, and without it Cassandra turned her attention back to the world. She had to wake the Inquisitor first, then the others. They still had much to do.

 

_Now her hand is raised_  
_A sword to pierce the sun_  
_With iron shield she defends the faithful_  
_Let chaos be undone_

_-Victoria 1:3_


End file.
